The present invention relates to torsion units, and more particularly, to torsion units including a resilient damping material interposed between an inner and/or outer load bearing members. The invention finds particular use in connection with motor vehicles and hydraulic damping systems.
Heretofore, torsion dampers have been made by bonding an elastomeric annulus between an outer sleeve and an inner member as to allow some degree of relative movement between the inner and outer members. This relative movement serves to cushion shock transmission between the two members by translating this force to compression or torsional shear applied to the resilient annulus. Conventionally, one of the two members is fixed to a drive shaft while the concentric member is secured to the driven member. Alternatively, the damper is attached between the held end of a torsion bar and the chassis.
Still other proposals have included segmenting the length of one of the members so as to alter the deformability of apparatus. In each case, the proposed systems have required that a non-load bearing member be secured to a relatively rigid supporting structure as to transfer stress to resilient annulus.
In some applications, it is difficult or inconvenient to connect a torsion unit to a supporting structure due to a lack of access to the connecting point or due to the nature of the connection or interrelationship or adjacent parts. One extreme example of such a situation relates to military tank vehicles for which there is no practical access to the tank underside to allow for making any attachments. Moreover, even in the case of vehicles with more accessible undersides, installation of presently available torsion units generally requires additional labor expense related to the time needed to remove and reattach the torsion unit to the structure.
Accordingly, it is the general object of this invention to avoid and overcome the foregoing and other difficulties and objections to torsion units by providing an improved torsion unit requiring no separate attachment of the damping unit to any supporting structure whatsoever.
It is another object of this invention to provide a torsion unit wherein the torsional load is shared longitudinally along the length of the torsion damping layer.